I wanted to talk a bit about what I did this weekend to get someone mentally
prepared to drive a race car....
First off I am not interested in letting anyone JUST drive the car, There has
to be some other Motivation... and quite frankly Money isn't much of a
motivator to me... So I'm not selling rides in my car... If Tonya wanted to
drive the car she had to show an interest in being a Real Crew member and Team
player.... which she is... I don't need someone to sweep out the trailer and
make sandwiches in return for a ride... I needed help organizing my
efforts.... she was interested and her attitude was that she wanted to learn
as much as she could about the car and it's systems....
What I did basically was write on the trailer wall the basic's of the car....
what it is and then went through a light description of each of the major
systems in the car...
Then we sat her in the car and went thru each of the individual controls and
lights and what they did and why they were there.... what to watch for and
then showed her a tach pass from a previous run so she could watch the tach
move and see what the shift light looked like....
Then we got her all suited up and had her get back in the car to adjust the
seat belts and to have her get a feel for what it was like to put on a drivers
suit and all it's bulkiness... We didn't leave out anything.... it was like
she was going to go down the course.... to include arm restraints... window
net the whole thing....
Then we talked through 5 complete passes .... with a fire drill at the end of
each of them.... this was actually sticking her back in the car and getting
her belted back in each time.... If there was a fire in the car on her first
pass she knew Exactly what to do and I was totally comfortable she could
handle the situation to include pulling the CORRECT fire handle for the engine
or the driver. I also explained the consequences of pulling a fire handle
inadvertently with reference to both cost and Holding her breath to not inhale
the Halon.
We did a course orientation which included Everything she was going to hear in
the drivers meeting and her rookie orientation... took her out on the course
and drove her down it to familiarize her with the whole course. This included
where to pull the parachute and How to slow the car down from speed....
exactly how to drive into the short and long shut down areas. I also included
a soothing dissertation on what NOT to do..... I have seen more folks get
Stupid in Shut down then anywhere else on the course.... Relaxing and DRIVING
the Dang Car is the most important thing you can do in shut down..... it's
amazing how many folks come inside the car to find the parachute handle or
brake handle.... this isn't the time to be searching for it!!! Again I'd
covered that over and over in our cockpit orientations.
Then in our warm up area... ( pit return road ) I had her drive the car around
for about 15 minutes to get a feel for the clutch and gear shift.... what we
found in here was that her dang Legs were still to short to reach the pedals
even with the 4 inch boosters I put in the seat. Sooooo we installed a 2X4
on the clutch pedal and let her go out on the course a couple of times on
Saturday.... the 109mph pass was great but I still felt like she was Reaching
for the Gas pedal.... The easy fix was an eraser duct taped to the gas pedal
to bring it an inch closer to her.... Perfect.... she could now at least make
the Loud pedal actually make noise.
Sunday we ran 129mph on the first pass and then on the second the Red light
came on... which does it's job when the water temp goes over 220 or the Oil
Psi is below 50 psi. again we had gone through this lights function and she
shut the car down just before the traps.... and ran 126.... Once it was cool
we went out Just before the end of the meet and I had her make a pass using
the long shut down area so she would be familiar with that as well.... and
this netted the 133mph speed....
In the process of this I also allowed one of our Crew members of the lakester
to make a Lic. pass..... I'd forgot where I had the rev limiter set and he
ended up doing 150mph on his first pass..... Not Good but it proved the car
was more then capable when Tonya was ready to go faster... and there was Zero
pressure to go faster then what she was doing....
Louise had asked us to keep a journal so that maybe we could share Tonya's
experiences at a later date.... so She was doing that as well... taking a
minute to write down short notes of the experience...
All and All.... Teaching someone to do complicated tasks is something I have
lots of experience at in the past..... The only thing I've missed out of my
flying career was the opportunity to teach... so this has absolutely been a
Blast.... just to watch the joy of accomplishment at the end of each pass.....
I think I'm getting used to being a car owner as well as a driver.... fun
stuff!!!
Keith
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